Winter 2009-2010 snowiest since 1977-1978

CLEVELAND - Four February snowstorms helped every major climate station across Ohio set or nearly set new monthly snowfall records this year.

But, we were not alone. Many regions of the northern hemisphere have seen record snowfall this winter, including Baltimore, Washington D.C, Philadelphia, Moscow, China, and Korea. Winter 09-10 will go down in the record books as the snowiest on record across the entire northern hemisphere.

Now that we have reached the end of the meteorological winter (December-February), Rutgers University Global Snow Lab numbers (1967-2010) show that the just completed decade (2001-2010) had the snowiest northern hemisphere winters on record. The just completed winter season was also the second snowiest on record, exceeded only by monster winter of 1978.

Average winter snow extent during the past decade was greater than 45,500,000 km2, beating out the 1960s by about 70,000 km2, and beating out the 1990s by nearly 1,000,000 km2. Average winter snow extent for the 2000's was more than double what was seen in the 1990s.

On top of that, the third week of February 2010 had the second highest weekly snow total in the Rutgers University 2,229 weeks of data. Three of the four snowiest winters since 1967 occurred after 2001. The top four snowiest Northern Hemisphere winters are (in order) 1978, 2010, 2008, and 2003.